Related Stories

WEST CHESTER, Pa. — Over in the arena bar, the one that has a viewing window of the rink below and where pints of Yuengling go for $4, a couple of patrons were watching the Philadelphia Flyers lose 5-1 to the New York Rangers on Tuesday night, while lamenting the team’s need for a big No. 1 centre.

It’s been a while since they had one, they concluded. Claude Giroux came close before he was moved to the wing. Mike Richards and Daniel Briere were both good in their own right, but they lacked the necessary size. Keith Primeau was certainly big enough, but he lacked the offensive skill-set.

Like the team’s ongoing search for a No. 1 goalie, you have to go back more than a decade to find a centre who blended both skill and size and everything else into one. You have to go back to Eric Lindros.

“There has not been a player before or after him like that,” said 47-year-old Eric Berkey of Johnstown, Pa., who was wearing a Flyers toque and a black Lindros jersey. “He’s a legend.”

The legend, who held a “Skate with 88” event in a suburb of Philadelphia earlier this week, will have his famed No. 88 jersey retired before Thursday night’s game against the Toronto Maple Leafs in a ceremony that most agree is a long time coming.

Lindros only spent eight years in a Flyers jersey. But for fans, they were an important eight years. From 1992 to 2000, the Big E was a big deal in Philadelphia. He scored 40 or more goals four different times, won a Hart Trophy as league MVP and led the Flyers to the Stanley Cup final. He might not have always been the best player in the league. But he certainly was the most physically imposing.

“He was the total package,” said 47-year-old Rich Georg of Summerset, Pa. “Skilled. Ferocious. He was scary to play against, not just physically but on the score sheet.”

Georg still has the ticket and the newspaper clipping from the first time he saw Lindros fight as a 19-year-old rookie in November 1992. “Lindros Pounds St. Louis,” was the headline in the Philadelphia Examiner the following day.

“I think it was Lee Norwood that he beat the hell out of,” said Georg. “In the article, Lee Norwood said he’d wrestled a bear in the Pennsylvania state fair and that the bear wasn’t as strong as that kid was.

That’s not a bad description of just how impressive Lindros was at the time. Even as a rookie, the 6-foot-4 and 230-pound centre was strong and mean enough to beat up a grizzly. But it wasn’t just brute strength that struck fear into opponents. His hands were so soft and so skilled that he could just as easily pet the bear into submission if he wanted to.

It was that juxtaposition that made Lindros special. It was why Quebec drafted him first overall in 1992 and why the Flyers and Rangers were both willing to give up a boatload of prospects when Lindros sat out the year and refused to report to the Nordiques. Ultimately, an arbitrator was brought in to decide which team would win his rights.

“It was strange,” admitted Lindros. “I was watching TV and waiting for my agent to tell me where to report.”

Eric Lindros during the HHOF Classic Game in Toronto on Nov. 13, 2016.Jack Boland/Postmedia Network

Eric Lindros is introduced at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto on Aug. 11, 2005.Postmedia Network

Eric Lindros at the Rogers Centre for a Bauer event on July 6, 2006.Ernest Doroszuk/Postmedia Network

Flyers to retire Eric Lindros' No. 88

It wasn’t just Lindros. Talk to anyone from Philadelphia and they will tell you where they were on the day the trade was announced. The closest thing today would be the draft lottery.

“I’ll never forget it,” said Mike Kool of Philadelphia. “I was 18, I was sitting in my friend’s living room and we were listening to the radio and they were announcing whether he was going to the Flyers or the Rangers. The Eagles had lost Randal Cunningham and the Phillies were here and there. It was all about the Flyers. They were just about to explode. It was amazing.”

Lindros hadn’t been to Philadelphia before the trade. Upon his first visit, he witnessed his first celebrity sighting.

“I remember walking down the hotel hallway and we walked right by Will Smith,” he said of the actor. “He was on Fresh Prince at the time. That was jiggy.”

Here, Lindros let out a huge belly laugh. His memories of the city, of the team, of the eight years he spent in Philadelphia are positive ones these days. He doesn’t dwell much on the injuries that slowed and ultimately stopped his career, or the nasty feuds with management over his medical care. He’s turned the page, moved on and put himself into a happier place.

“I was here for eight years,” he said. “We had fun. It was great.”

The same goes for the fans. While Lindros was painted as a whiny baby in the press during his final days in Philadelphia, we now know enough about concussions and the severity of brain injuries to realize that Lindros’ concerns about his health were more than justified. The things he was criticized for seeking a second opinion, questioning the care he received, not wanting to rush back — are things that are normal in today’s NHL.

“For me, a lot of fans didn’t have any hard feelings about him,” said Al Perry. “I didn’t personally. I was always an 88 fan. But it’s nice to have him back, welcome him with open arms. It’s a nice warm and fuzzy feeling.”

After the “Skate with 88” event on Tuesday night, Lindros sat down with fans and shared stories about his time in Philadelphia. There was no talk about the feud with then-GM Bobby Clarke or whether the Game 7 hit from Scott Stevens was illegal.

Instead, Lindros talked about why Dave Brown was the funniest teammate he had (“He used to pretend the middle aisle on a plane was a ski hill”), why Bobby Holik was the toughest player he played against (“80 per cent of the plays wouldn’t develop because of him”) and how he knew it was time to retire in 2007 (“I started looking at the clock during practice. When you’re having fun, it zips by”).

Soon enough, the night was zipping by and there was only time for one more question. And so, with the Flyers currently out of the playoffs and in need of some help down the middle, a fan asked the seemingly inevitable.

“Can you still play?”

Lindros didn’t answer. Instead, he elicited one more belly laugh with a question of his own.

Holmgren bridged divide between Lindros, Flyers

Paul Holmgren remembers being blown away.

“The first time I saw Eric play, I was with (Bobby Clarke) in 1989 and we went to go to Toronto to see the phenom play for the St. Mike’s Buzzers,” said the Philadelphia Flyers president. “He would have been 15 or 16 at the time. It was like, ‘holy mackerel.’ And I remember Clarkie saying after, ‘I’ve got to figure out a way to get this guy.’”

Three years later, Clarke did indeed find a way to get Lindros, with the Flyers acquiring the No. 1 overall pick from the Quebec Nordiques. But after an acrimonious split in 2000, it was Holmgren who brought Lindros back to Philadelphia when he invited the former captain to play in the 2011 alumni game at the outdoor Winter Classic.

“It was Paul Holmgren who said, “Let’s get going here,’” said Lindros.

“I thought it was good that he came,” said Holmgren. “Everybody was happy and it was a great event. We had all the Flyers’ greats come back from the eras. If he wasn’t there, it wouldn’t have looked right in my opinion. The rest has moved along just the way it should.”

When the decision came on retiring Lindros’ jersey, it was Holmgren who once again made the phone call. For Holmgren, raising No. 88 to the rafters is a no-brainer. Not only did Lindros lead the Flyers to the Stanley Cup final and win a Hart Trophy as regular season MVP, he played the game like no other before him or since.

“What a beast he was as a player,” said Holmgren. “If you were watching the Flyers anytime when he was with us, he could deliver anything you wanted, whether it was a big hit, a beautiful pass, score a great goal. He could play it anyway you wanted. It really wasn’t fair the way he was built for the rest of the league.

“If you think back over that time, he probably had as much or more of an impact as any player in the history of the franchise. The things he could do as a player — even though it wasn’t that long of a time — he’s in the Flyers Hall of Fame, he’s in the NHL’s Hall of Fame and voted as one of the top-100 players of all time. He was a great player. And in a few hours here, his number is going to be retired here with the other Flyers’ greats.